Immaculate Savior

Chapter 2

I hate myself and I want to die.

Regis stared at the parchment. The words sit too heavy yet feel incomplete, he thought. He crumpled the parchment and cast it to the floor to join the others. He drew a fresh parchment and rapped his knuckles thoughtfully on the writing desk. Dear friends, he wrote. He stroked the noose around his neck as he nodded in satisfaction. The one true gem sat on his desk as a paper weight. His eye was caught by his many reflections in its facets as they leered at him.

"Whatcha goin' on about?" They asked him, laughing. "Ya don't have any friends!"

The smell of dwarven spirits, rancid sweat, and stinky cheeses assaulted Regis's nostrils through the cracks around his chamber door. A loud pounding on the door quickly followed.

"rumblebelly! tha finest mine inna north don't run itself, ya know. quit cryin' yer bloody pisser an' git ta werk!"

Regis crumpled the parchment and cast it on the floor to join the others. He drew a fresh parchment and rapped his knuckles thoughtfully on the writing desk.

I hate myself and I want to die, he wrote.

Regis stood in the cavern that served as Mithral Hall's sewer. He stared at the huge tides of bubbling crude that had been begat by a legion of cabbage eating dwarves. A small bag of lye and a brush lay long forgotten on the floor. Please, let it end here, he thought and struck a match against the cavern wall.

An unholy blast rocked the bowels of Mithral Hall. Riding a roaring stampede of flame, Regis was rocketed through a venilation shaft in the cieling. Sweet death, I'm coming home! Regis exulted as his hair, eyes, and body crisped in the flame and the sun kissed clouds embraced him.

It was a cold day in the north. Drizzt stared at a river, marvelling that the water always seemed to flow downstream. This is what I was made for, he thought.

He began to reach for his diary when suddenly the earth errupted to send ice and soil gysering to the air. Drizzt could see that something had struck the ground and plowed a long deep furrow. Drizzt ran along the earthen channel to where the object had come to a rest. What could have done this?

Drizzt's face went pale as he recognized the smoking pile of meat and bone.

"Regis! I thought you died! I mean...not now but I thought you died months ago!"

The cooked, quivering meatsack that was Regis let out a dry gasping hack.

"...Drizzt."

"Yes, it's me old friend," Drizzt said, falling to his knees, beside himself, and Regis too. "Just hang in there. You're looking real good. Help is going to come soon."

"He won't let us die."

"That's right Regis. No one is going to die. Just don't give up," Drizzt said, with tears in his eyes.

"No...listen. Nobody can die. I've tried so many times but...he won't let me."

"I don't understand."

"Our lives...are so empty and without meaning. Just...a series of...arbitrary events. But nothing ever changes...we don't change. He won't let us. He won't even let us die...because we have the mark."

"What mark? What are you talking about?"

"The back of my neck. You'll see."

Drizzt gingerly turned the living corpse of Regis to spy a blazing green sigil on the back of his neck.

"Regis! What could it be! What manner of foul magic is it!"

"I...don't know but...we all have it. You...me...Cattie...Bruenor...Conan...even Dagnar."

"But Dagnar died fighting the trolls! His son Dagnabbit is the general now!"

"Drizzt...look closer at Dagnabbit...it's really Dagnar." Regis seemed to deflate with another coughing fit. "Drizzt...I can't live like this. Please...burn me to ash...and scatter me to the four winds. I have to keep trying."

"But I can't do that, Frodo! You're still alive!"

Regis pawed at Drizzt with the charcoal stumps of his arms, "Please Drizzt! I'm begging...if you were ever my friend then you will do this one thing for me."

"Don't talk like that! You're going to live!" Drizzt cried, weeping.

"Don't say that!" Regis cried, weeping.

Just then, a single tear drop fell from the sky to fall upon his wounds and heal him completely.

"You bloody bastard!" Regis screamed, shaking his fist at the heavens. "I don't know how but one way or another I'll kill you!"

Drizzt stared at Regis, aghast to see the halfling stomping around and throwing vulgar curses at everything and anything.

"Regis, maybe we should find a priest...or some healing magic."

Regis stopped. And stared at Drizzt. Slowly, he began to smile and Drizzt smiled back encouragingly. Regis began to nod his head at a quickening pace to match Drizzt's own encouraging nod, "A priest. Yes...a priest. We can go to one and ask him to pray for some gods damned sanity!"

Drizzt's heart was breaking. "Regis...it'll be alright, you'll see. You'll get better."

"Wait...you think this is me? You think...I'm the one who's crazy? You're just a slave! You're a part of all this!"

"Regis, please! You're scaring me!"

Regis's smile turned nasty and his eyes took a wild glint, "You're one of them, are'nt you? I've always known it. I've even tried to kill you five times but you just won't die! I've tried poisoning, pushing you down the stairs-"

Drizzt had an idea, "Regis! Your gem! You can use it on yourself and make yourself right again! Make yourself believe that each life is unique and worth living!"

"No! It's my precious! No one can have it!" Regis stopped himself cold, his wide eyes stared into nothing as he searched himself. His mouth hung open, quivering to form words that could not come. Finally, he collapsed to the ground and began to sob. "He won't let me die."